


angel kisses

by mechanicalUniverses



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Kisses, Cheesy, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, Fluff, Freckles, M/M, No Smut, Sexual implications, Soft times are had, Sweet, Weather motifs, just cause!, naps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 18:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20314099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicalUniverses/pseuds/mechanicalUniverses
Summary: On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, an angel makes a startling discovery about a demon.





	angel kisses

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends :D i had to hop on this good omens train ride after hearing so much about it and reading the book. i fell in love with these two dorks and in a stroke of brilliance at twelve am, i remembered the term "angel kiss" and absolutely had to do something about it. without further ado, here's my first ever gomens fic—i apologize now for any ooc'ness and geographical inaccuracies. enjoy!

Nothing is particularly noteworthy about this quiet Tuesday afternoon. It is raining again. It is not a torrential amount you ponder over. No wind exists to blow it off course in unpredictable directions. The tremendous rolling thunderheads overhead grumble quietly. The thunder isn’t loud or impressive enough to entice one to race to the nearest window to watch lightning crackle across the gray expanse, but rather, it murmurs fondly, _Really, what are you thinking, being out here? Why don’t you run along and head inside? There’s a favorite drink and a favorite interest and a favorite person waiting for you_. 

Whether you were so rudely ignoring the storm’s good-hearted concern or were trying your best to heed it and had simply found yourself caught out of sorts, you might pass by a particular bookshop in the Soho neighborhood. You won’t enter it; it’s dark inside, and the antique sign very politely says “closed” anyhow, despite the fact this hour was actually one of the rare instances it should be open according to the bizarre hours posted on the ancient oak door, which is locked—but you won’t bother checking the hours or trying the door. You’ll pass by the bookshop without giving it a second thought, and you won’t notice that the rain snaking its way down the window panes can’t quite cut through the artificial layer of grime coating the glass. 

Because the grime won’t wash away, you also won’t notice the human-shaped forms of two immortal beings inside of the bookshop. One is an angel with a heavy book open in one hand. He is leaning against the arm of the couch with both his legs up on the cushions. He has no intention of providing any services to customers today because in his lap is his lover, a demon who is fast asleep and drooling a bit on his vest. He has his cheek cushioned by the angel’s soft chest and is having a rather pleasant dream. The angel’s second hand is carded into one of the demon’s own hands and stroking it absently.

Because you do not even think to enter the bookshop, you do not see that the angel has made a slightly startling discovery. 

“Crowley?”

For a while, the only sound is another rumble of thunder and a few more seconds of falling rain.

Then, with a deep inhale and a voice gravelly with sleep:

“What is it, ‘Zira?”

“I’m sorry for waking you, my dear.” And he sincerely is. It’s easy to tell by his apologetic, yet fond smile Crowley cannot help but forgive instantly. “But I’ve noticed something odd—have you always had freckles here?” He stroked the top of Crowley’s hand slowly, swirling his finger idly across tendons that show a touch too much.

Crowley blinks slowly. Then, rubbing his eye, he props his chin on Aziraphale’s vest, muttering, “I wasn’t aware I had freckles of any sort.”

“Neither was I.” Aziraphale has that light twist in his tone that indicates he’s simultaneously delighted and perplexed. 

But they’re there, sure enough, scattered liberally across his bony knuckles and the milky back of his hand. They’re a pale golden-brown, and would hardly be noticeable if Aziraphale’s observation skills weren’t as sharp as a blade. Crowley’s slides his wedding ring, a gold band with a small snake etched into it, up his finger and finds another three underneath it.

“I didn’t ask them to show up,” answers Crowley with disdain after a moment of observation. He turns his hand this way and that, finding more on the inside of his wrist, right over where his pulse would be if he had one. Aziraphale gently catches his wrist as he shows him his palm.

“There’s some here too!” he says. “How remarkable.” Aziraphale uses ‘remarkable’ the same way humans use ‘weird’ when they see something interesting when they mean ‘cool’ but deem themselves too above whatever it is to qualify it as such explicitly.

“Aren’t they a sign of age in humans?” asks Crowley.

“I believe they get them from being exposed to the sun, too,” answers Aziraphale.

“I thought that was skin damage.

A rumble of thunder chuckles at them.”

“Probably not that,” says Crowley.

“No,” agrees Aziraphale. “Maybe we _are_ starting to appear as our age after all.”

He says it as a light jest, but Crowley’s ever imaginative brain takes that thought for a spin. It was a new and, frankly, terrifying thought, aging—the possibility of an _end _after nearly ten millennia_. _Crowley has never done it once in the eight thousand years he’s been alive. He’s never bothered with an age-spot, wrinkle, or even a single silver hair unless it was for deceitful purposes. His posture remains slouched, but that’s intentional and calculated. He’s never contemplated the terrifying reality that is being mortal, never sat in bed and wondered what he would do with the last of his days, never went about the world eating new food and visiting new places, trying desperately to complete a bucket list before the final granule of sand hit the bottom of the hourglass.

Crowley indulges the thought for a second. Aging meant slowing down, meant _stopping_, said there was an absolute end to everything. There was a time limit to everything and still so much to do and no way to restart if he makes a mistake.

And then there is Aziraphale—what would happen to him? Would the weight of his existence wither away his new human body? Would he age at the age he’d chosen to represent himself as for so long?

That is a whole other fearsome beast to pick apart. It was best to leave it alone for now.

_No_, Crowley decides after three seconds of thought, he does not like the idea of aging. And he does not like the freckles even more.

Aziraphale hums, bringing Crowley out of his thoughts. “You said you didn’t manifest them?”

Crowley shook his head, feeling sleepy again. He shut his eyes and put his head back down on Aziraphale’s chest.

“I see. I wonder if…” Aziraphale trails off. Crowley knows he’s chasing the tail end of some thought. He doesn’t like to be distracted when he’s running after it, so Crowley stays quiet. He’s almost asleep when he feels Aziraphale’s chest shift with an unnecessary breath before he speaks again. “Do you think it’s a sign we’re drifting further from our sides and becoming more… human?”

“Probably,” Crowley says honestly. “I was under the impression we did that a while ago. Y’know, after the whole officially committing a huge act of treason against Heaven and Hell by stopping the Apocalypse after they spent six thousand years prepping the thing. Do you remember that? Weird times.”

“Yes, I did too,” Aziraphale says, delicately ignoring everything else. “I’m not sure why anything would begin to change now. If it’s meant as a punishment, it seems to be rather ineffective. And late. But what do you think, dear? Those freckles are on your body, after all.”

“I dunno. I think you’re right on this one, though. ‘S not as though Satan came up all, ‘Oh, you know what would give me a laugh? Puttin’ dots on this disobedient demon. That’ll show ’em.’”

“Take this seriously, please.”

“I am, angel.”

Aziraphale relaxes partially. “Can you get rid of them?”

Crowley glares at his hand to resume the clear skin it’s had for as long as he could remember. To his unpleasant surprise, the freckles do not budge. He sharpens his glare, and still, they make no sign of fading.

“No,” he grunts after his third attempt.

“How strange,” says Aziraphale, mystified. “May I try?”

Crowley wordlessly holds his arm out. Aziraphale holds his hand and closes his eyes. A few seconds pass, during which Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s powers at work—they’re tingly and cozily warm, like champagne bubbles skittering up his skin. After a moment, Aziraphale opens one eye, and then the other with a huff when he sees nothing’s changed.

“Do they hurt?” he asks, brushing Crowley’s knuckles with his thumb.

Crowley shakes his head. “Not at all.”

“Have you felt, oh, I don’t know... _odd _recently and didn’t recognize the cause? If you did, perhaps—” Crowley is already shaking his head again—“no? Alright then.” He hums. Eventually, he says, “Well. I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye on it. You’ll tell me if you feel any different?”

“Y’don’t need to tell me twice.”

A week goes by. Crowley tries every day to get the freckles off of his skin, but by the beginning of next week, he realizes it’s hopeless. Since one of their number’s cover had been blown, the freckles seem to be taking that as an invitation to pop out of their numerous hiding places. They’re absolutely _everywhere_, and more appear with every passing day.

Crowley finds his shoulders absolutely smothered. His temples have some that disappear up into his hairline. For some reason, there are some on the shell of his pointed ear. When he checks in the mirror, he’s a little embarrassed to find they go all the way down his back—along his spine, across his shoulder-blades like little echoes of his actual wings, and onto his arse. His thighs and in-between them also have them, somehow, which Crowley decides is proof enough to eliminate the “becoming more human” hypothesis, because there’s no way his legs ever see the weak London sun enough to warrant the number of freckles that are down there. Some of them do fade, but only slightly, and by then, another dozen have replaced them.

(After furtively ensuring Aziraphale was nowhere in the vicinity, he looks up the differences between age spots and freckles and is entirely too happy to report the freckles are just that—freckles.)

However, those ones are simple enough to cover up. Crowley wears long-sleeved shirts and jackets and pants anyway, so they’re easy enough to ignore. But the most annoying ones are the ones all over his face. Unless he wanted to wear a ski-mask twenty-four-seven, there was no avoiding swatch dabbed across his nose like someone had taken a brush and streaked it across his visage, the twin spots expanding on his cheeks, the little troupe dancing on his forehead. There were some on his _eyelids, _for fuck’s sake.

But for as much Crowley dislikes the invasiveness and stubbornness of the freckles, there is a rather generous silver lining: Aziraphale is absolutely infatuated with them. He could be described as touchy before, always casually laying his hand on Crowley’s shoulder, hip, or back in passing, but now he’s almost clingy in nature. He finds every excuse in the book plus ones not written down yet to touch them, to let his hands roam to find new ones in odd places, to reverently run his thumb over them. Crowley does not mind one bit.

“May I see, darling?”

“Oh, Crowley, I think there are new freckles here…”

“They’re wonderful, my dearest. I think they suit you well.”

And then he’ll kiss those newly discovered spots with a little smile. That’s Crowley’s favorite thing about the freckles. They’ve earned him a billion dot-sized tickets to a front seat of Aziraphale’s affection every single day, and he is, as they say, a huge fan.

If either of them were paying close enough attention, they would have seen new freckles blooming into existence wherever Aziraphale tenderly kisses Crowley’s skin much longer ago.

They do catch on though—eventually.

Two weeks have gone by. It is Thursday evening, and the sun is settling down in its cradle on the horizon to sleep. It had done a spectacular job making the day ever so pleasant and bright, and the evening air was buzzing with good cheer. Crowley and Aziraphale are standing near the pond in St. James, deep in a discussion (argument) about cottages in the South Downs. Aziraphale was angling for an oceanside place for the view, while Crowley wanted a more wild place for his plants. The ducks had long ago grown bored of the five-thousandth rendition of this argument and swam off to nest for the night. 

“Have you seen the pictures of what it looks like in the evening? It’s the most lovely little place, my dear. It has plenty of gardening space _and_ a reading nook!”

“But—”

“Look!”

“...Alright, I do like that. But angel, you don’t understand, the sea salt will change the salinity—”

“I was a gardener for eleven years if I must remind you.”

“Not a good one. I miracled the roses back to life every other day.”

“I beg your pardon! It wasn’t my fault that little Warlock had a habit of running through the Missus’ flower beds! Besides, there was only so much I could do without garnering suspicion!”

This was merely one of many squabbles they’d had over the whole business. Sometimes they weren’t resolved and were instead put on hold until another time. Sometimes they decided “both are okay” and worked around that. Sometimes they realized the thing they were arguing over was ridiculous, and that would leave them both acutely embarrassed. The great Fence-Post Argument of 2014 was carefully never mentioned in any conversation, period.

But once in a blue moon, they found a compromise.

“Hold on, hold on,” Crowley interrupts in time to cut off one of Aziraphale’s rants at the head. “You want a place with a view, yes, yes, that’s all fine and good. But why do you need to be next door to the ocean to _see_ the ocean?”

“Very funny, dear.” Crowley shoots him a confused look. “I thought—Oh, you know. Sea as in water, see as in sight?”

“What—Oh, God. Stop laughing, that was _bad._” Crowley has to smother a stupid smile before he bulldozes on. “Anyway. _Anyway._ Ocean five meters away is the same ocean a kilometer away, innit?”

Aziraphale thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“So just—budge the house back some. Put it on a hill or something.”

“A hill,” Aziraphale murmurs. A little spark caught in his eye. “I do recall seeing one like that listed. I thought it wasn’t worth mentioning it because, well. I didn’t think you’d like it.”

“What, the hill or the house?”

“Both, I suppose. There wasn’t a garage I could see, and I thought to have the Bentley being parked uphill all the time—Forgive me, I don’t know much about cars, but I don’t think that’s good for it.”

“She won’t go anywhere.”

Aziraphale watches him placidly. “If you say so,” he says eventually. “And the house itself… it just didn’t seem your style.”

“Angel,” Crowley says seriously, “I couldn’t care less what the house looks like as long as you’re in it.” 

The glow in Aziraphale’s eye catches fire and lights up his whole face. Grinning, he leans forward and pecks the tip of Crowley’s nose.

“Aren’t you a sweet old thing—Oh!” His eyes go very, very wide.

Crowley looks behind him and then squints at Aziraphale. “What?”

“Your freckles!”

“What about ’em? Are they gone?”

“I—Oh my goodness.” Aziraphale delicately bites his lip as his shoulders start to tremble. Crowley, thoroughly befuddled, can only turn his palms over in a _What the heaven?_ gesture. “I should have guessed,” giggles Aziraphale. The apples of his cheeks are bright pink with mirth. “Tell me, Crowley, do you know what nicknames humans have given freckles?”

Crowley furrows his brow. “Moles? Birthmarks?” he tries. “A sunburn?” He pauses. “An allergic reaction?”

It takes Aziraphale a couple of tries to get it out, he’s laughing too hard. Crowley can’t help the quirky smile born out of a failed attempt to hide it. “‘Angel kisses.’”

Aziraphale grins at Crowley until it strikes him like a divine bolt of lightning. Crowley’s mouth opens in a wordless exclamation as a flush travels slowly up his throat, blooms red across his face, stains the very tips of his pointed ears magenta, and ends up blending in flawlessly with his hair, which has begun to smoke. He presses his hands against his face so hard, the eye shields on the sides of his sunglasses dig sharply into his flesh. 

“No wonder you can’t get rid of them!” Aziraphale is cackling, or at least laughing in a manner that was as close as he could get to a cackle. His laugh came from deep in his belly rolled out richly like the peals of a church bell. It always felt like he was laughing with you, never at you. “They’re a _holy_ gift! Delivered from me to you!”

“You.” It’s all Crowley can get out before embarrassment renders his tongue stupid. “Ghk.”

He swears the little winking of the pond water in the fading sunlight was Her way of cosmic laughter.

_Real proud of yourself for that one, huh?_ he gripes while Aziraphale attempts to rein himself in, attempt being the keyword. 

“Goodness,” Aziraphale gasps. Crowley is still fuming; Aziraphale reaches up and pinches a little strand of hair that was on fire. “Oh, what a treat. You must see it, I insist.”

Crowley grumbles incoherently but allows Aziraphale to take up his arm anyhow. He searches for an unblemished patch on Crowley’s skin, which takes a few more seconds than it ought to, and ends up selecting the first knuckle of his thumb. He brings it chastely to his lips with a smile and then gestures excitedly for Crowley to watch. Sure enough, a couple of seconds later, a patch of freckles appears in the pucker-pattern of Aziraphale’s lips. They glimmer like gold glitter for a brief second before fading into the faint brown that was identical to the thousands of other freckles dotting Crowley’s body.

“Jesus Christ,” sighs Crowley. This was—This was terrible. Don’t get him wrong; he wasn’t ashamed to have Aziraphale’s love marking up his body like so. Conversely, he felt immensely gratified to have physical signs over him. It was like additional proof. Not that he needed it. It was just _nice. _Yet, now that he knows what they all mean, having them display to hundreds of hundreds of eyes feels like an immense invasion of their privacy. Humans wouldn’t _know_, obviously, but the thought still made him squirm.

Not to mention the _name—_gah. 

Aziraphale tuts and scoops him in for a soft hug. Crowley tries his best to stay puffed up in indignation, but it doesn’t last in the tender way Aziraphle is holding him.

“If you are truly bothered that much,” Aziraphale murmurs against his neck, “I can… hold off, on showing you my affection. Slow down, if you will. I know it can be a bit much sometimes, and the last thing I want is for you to be unhappy because if it.”

_Slow down_, Crowley mouths. What an absurd thought. They’d been going at the pace of an elderly snail a missing foot and then somehow _slower _for as long as the Earth had existed. He’d witnessed continents shift, and mountains shrink, and whole empires rise and vanish like the tides before he Aziraphale kissed him. And now, when was finally allowed to openly bask in the waves and waves of fondness and sheer delight and joy rolling off of Aziraphale in dizzyingly massive pulses without fear to tarry it, Crowley cannot settle for anything less. It is impossible.

“I appreciate it, but you don’t need to do that. I’ll get used to the buggers. Thanks anyway, angel,” he says, and he quickly kisses Aziraphale’s silvery sideburns. Aziraphale gently rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder as he entwines his arm around Crowley’s waist. His hand settles comfortably on his hip, warm and solid.

“Anything for you, my love,” he says easily.

They fall into a practiced step on the path back to Aziraphale’s bookshop. Dusk has dusted the world in its velvety lavender, layering every stone and leaf with a misty veil. Around them, London nightlife takes a breath of life. Rowdy groups of friends laugh brightly as they head to the theatre. Dates chatter excitedly about the restaurants they’re going to. Pub goers are already swarming the sidewalks as they drift from place to place. 

Yes, a night in sounds excellent right now. Perhaps a fire in the hearth he’d encouraged Aziraphale to create as well.

“How about we head back home then? I wanna check out that place you found.”

“Yes, let’s. And I hope you’re fond of pink…”

“Do you like pink?”

“And if I do?” Aziraphale tilts his chin up.

Crowley smiles. “Then it must be an alright color if it’s up to your standards.”

They walk through the park in silence for a little bit, listening to the world for a while. The crisp sound of Crowley’s boots on the stone compliments Aziraphale’s softer but surefooted steps nicely. The trees whisper to one another for a moment, shivering in their branches as a slight breeze sets their pretty leaves aflutter and sends a few to drift away to somewhere new.

“Crowley?”

“Yes, angel?”

“You must be told this again. I love you so dearly—with and without freckles—and I am so happy to finally be able to call you mine.”

“And yours to keep, freckles and all.”

A laugh that floats on the wind as lightly and gracefully as the leaves.

“And mine to keep, freckles and all.”

**Author's Note:**

> me, slamming my hands on my keyboard: it's about setting the MOOD with WEATHER  
anyway if you wanna talk to me about this story, gomens in general, or anything else really, feel free to hop over to my fandom [sideblog](https://scintillating-galaxias.tumblr.com/), where i reblog a lot of stuff and cry in the tags. i'll be posting this story there too :^) if you want to request something from me, i'd be thrilled! or you can just drop a comment here. whatever suits you!  
thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed reading it as i did writing. have a lovely day!


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